Becoming a board-certified veterinary cardiologist takes a DVM, a one-year rotating internship or the equivalent clinical experience, a cardiology residency of at least 144 weeks, and passes in both ACVIM examinations — the General and the Cardiology Specialty exam.
The AVMA counted 497 active U.S. cardiology diplomates as of December 31, 2025.
Here is each step in order, where cardiologists work, how the exams are passed and failed, and what the pay data does and doesn't say.
What a veterinary cardiologist does
A veterinary cardiologist is the heart specialist of the veterinary world: a licensed veterinarian who, on top of the veterinary degree, trained on to diagnose and manage heart disease as a credentialed specialty.
The credential behind the title is diplomate status in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) — cardiology is one of six specialties ACVIM certifies, alongside small animal internal medicine, large animal internal medicine, neurology, nutrition and oncology.
The college-level page for ACVIM and veterinary internal medicine covers the parent organization; this page is the cardiology-specific layer.
ACVIM was founded in 1973 with just over 40 diplomates; its worldwide membership now stands above 3,900.
Cardiology is also one of 48 distinct specialties the AVMA recognizes across 22 specialty organizations, so the specialty sits at a defined address in the credentialing system — see the veterinary specialties hub for the full map.
What distinguishes the training is procedural depth.
ACVIM's cardiology candidates keep echocardiography and catheterization logs as part of their credentials, and the residency itself must include at least 96 weeks of directly supervised intensive clinical training in veterinary cardiology — so the specialty's center of gravity is cardiac imaging and catheterization, logged and practiced under supervision.
How a veterinarian reaches that credential follows the same ladder as the other ACVIM specialties — how specialization works covers the general mechanics — so the rest of this page stays on the cardiology-specific version.
Training path: internship, residency, boards
ACVIM describes the ladder plainly: its diplomates complete considerable post-graduate training beyond the six to eight years of college normally required for a veterinary degree — an internship, a residency, and documented clinical experience.
For cardiology, the sequence runs through six gates:
Graduate and be legally qualified to practice
ACVIM's traditional path starts with graduating from an AVMA-approved veterinary college, or holding the legal qualifications to practice. The internship that follows is a one-year rotating internship in medicine and surgery — or equivalent broad-based clinical experience.Match to a cardiology residency through VIRMP
Residency positions are filled through the Veterinary Internship and Residency Matching Program. For the 2027 cycle, applicants can access the site from November 1, 2026, applications are due January 4, 2027 at 9 p.m. EST, applicant rank lists are due February 12, 2027, and match results post March 1, 2027. How the residency match works covers the mechanics in detail.Complete at least 144 weeks of residency
An ACVIM-approved cardiology residency must run at least 144 weeks — about three calendar years — including at least 96 weeks of directly supervised intensive clinical training in veterinary cardiology. Along the way the manual requires a minimum of 80 hours of cardiology journal club, and candidates keep echocardiography and catheterization logs. Register as an ACVIM candidate within 90 days of starting the residency.Pass the General Examination
Candidates become eligible after 72 weeks in an approved residency, and the exam is offered once a year. In 2026 the overall General Examination pass rate was 92% — 95% for first-time takers, 67% on retake.Pass the Cardiology Specialty Examination
Credentials submissions are due by 11:59 PM MT on October 1 of the year before the Specialty Examination you are targeting, and accepted credentials are a prerequisite for sitting it. Cardiology's specialty exam pass rate was 79% overall in 2026 — 83% first-time — after 85% in 2025 and 68% in 2024. Every certification requirement, including finishing the residency, must be complete within five years of the residency's last day.Keep the credential
Board certification is not one-and-done: ACVIM diplomates pay an annual recertification fee and must meet Maintenance of Certification requirements every 10 years.
ACVIM's own documents are the operative rules
How many there are and where they work
The field is small in absolute terms.
The AVMA counted 497 active board-certified U.S. cardiology specialists as of December 31, 2025 — inside ACVIM's 4,537 U.S. diplomates, and the 20,636 active diplomates across all AVMA-recognized specialty organizations (some veterinarians hold more than one specialty).
Two other cardiology numbers circulate, and it helps to know why they differ.
ACVIM's own January 2026 membership count lists 466 worldwide in cardiology when tallied by single specialty (members holding two specialties are counted separately).
That is a worldwide membership tally, not a U.S. diplomate count — for "how many veterinary cardiologists are there in the U.S.," the AVMA figure is the one to use, and the two series shouldn't be mixed.
Where the work happens: ACVIM publishes practice-setting counts for its whole membership, not one specialty.
In January 2026, private practice accounted for 2,346, academia 970, industry 185, mobile practice 128, government 24 and other settings 138, with a median member age of 43 (members who left the setting blank aren't in those counts).
ACVIM's published table doesn't break cardiology out, so treat those as the shape of specialist employment generally — where specialists work breaks down the referral-hospital, academic and industry paths and what each one buys and costs you.
Pay compared with GP
Start with the honest part: our research found no public source that publishes a cardiology-specific salary.
BLS tracks all veterinarians as one occupation, and ACVIM's own compensation reporting — its Compensation Compass — is members-only.
An exact "veterinary cardiologist salary" figure in an ad, a listicle or a recruiting pitch is not one we could trace to a national dataset, and this page won't add another to the pile.
What can be said with authority is the whole-occupation picture.
In the BLS OEWS May 2025 data for veterinarians (SOC 29-1131), the 10th percentile earned $73,920, the 25th $101,460, the median $130,100, the 75th $166,120 and the 90th $215,700.
That spread covers GPs, specialists, academics and government veterinarians together — it shows the profession's full range, not what the cardiology credential adds to it.
So compare with GP pay by reasoning from structure instead of a number: the training runs years past the veterinary degree — an internship, a residency of at least 144 weeks, two exams — and our research found no national figure for what premium the credential itself adds.
Specialist vs GP earnings walks through what each existing source actually measures, where a premium shows up indirectly, and how to price a specialty offer for yourself.
Why there is no cardiology pay figure on this page
Is it worth the training time?
The case for is the work itself.
You spend the training years in supervised clinical cardiology — echocardiography and catheterization among the logged requirements — and end with a credential held by 497 active U.S. diplomates.
If heart cases are the part of the job you'd do for free, the ladder above is ACVIM's traditional route to the credential.
The case against is arithmetic, and every piece of it is on this page: six to eight years of college for the veterinary degree, a one-year rotating internship (or the equivalent broad clinical experience), a residency of at least 144 weeks, two once-a-year exams with a 79% overall cardiology pass rate in 2026 (and 68% in 2024), a five-year window to finish everything, then an annual fee and Maintenance of Certification every decade.
Nothing in it comes with a published pay premium our research can point a source at.
Two caveats when you weigh it.
First, exam risk is real — in each of the last three years, at least 15% of candidates sitting the cardiology specialty exam did not pass it, so plan the finances to survive a retake year.
Second, don't build the decision on demand forecasts: our research found no published figure for interventional cardiology demand.
Decide from the training reality and the work you can verify.
If the underlying question is residency in general rather than cardiology specifically, is a residency worth the opportunity cost handles it across all specialties.
Specialty jobs
Once diplomate, the hiring market runs through two channels.
During training, residency positions run through the VIRMP match on the timeline above.
After boards, the practical channel is the open market: watch veterinarian job listings to see what specialty and referral practices currently have live.
The sizing numbers to work with are the ones above: 497 active U.S. cardiology diplomates, and ACVIM's college-wide setting counts — private practice 2,346, academia 970, industry 185, mobile 128, government 24, other 138 — which describe specialist employment overall, not a cardiology census.
Where specialists work breaks down the referral-hospital, academic and industry paths and what each one buys and costs you, and it's worth reading before you pick a setting.
Reading this from the employer side?
The mirror guide to hiring a veterinarian covers screening, offers and onboarding for practices.